Trapped

I did a little research on performances on A Doll's House and there was one that stuck out to me. It was done in 2008 at the Bated Breathe Theater Company, and even though it didn't get the greatest reviews, I thought the director took an interesting twist to the story. I think she went a little over the top, but at least it was something original. Instead of having a "comfortable" house, like the one Ibsen describes, the director strips away all of the knick-knacks and carpeting and instead has only a few white blocks that double as chairs and tables. The most interesting part of the set I thought were the walls. In the beginning on the play there are plush, yellow-ish walls but slowly as the play progresses the walls change to grey. The room moves from being warm and welcoming to cold and dark and the idea is that it's supposed to feel like an insane asylum, and Nora is the patient.

The director even went far enough to have Nora wear a hospital bracelet, hinting at her being a patient. Torvald moves away from being her huband, and instead acts like her doctor. Even when he is calling her pet names, it is without love or heart, it is simply showing that she belongs to him. There is a "frigid chemistry" between the two, and the director wanted to show from the start that the marriage is fake and has no love behind it.

I think it's an interesting idea to focus on Nora being trapped, but I also think it moves away from Ibsen's original ideas. I like the idea that the house looks comfortable and some place where the audience would want to live and then we can join Nora on her journey as her story unravels. I think it would have been better if the house starts out as Ibsen describes it and then slowly gets darker, but not to the gloomy place that this version ends up. I also think it's better for the audience to believe in Nora and Torvald's relationship in the beginning, because it makes it more interesting when it slowly breaks apart.